The Joy of Solo Travel

Pleasing myself

“Tell me, what is that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” said no Careers Advisor ever (this is actually a quote from the wonderful Mary Oliver).   

The one thing I always knew I wanted to do was to travel. At my girls’ school, this prompted the hardly radical suggestion that I join the Navy or try to become an air hostess. Either of those, even they could see by the look of me, were as unlikely as me becoming a deep-sea diver, but I guess they had to say something.  

Anyway, I have always wanted to travel. Maybe I just wanted to get away from my small town. My best friend and I used to close our eyes, stick a pin in a map and then hitchhike to that spot. We went everywhere, all over Europe and sometimes it was scary and ended up very badly indeed. But that never stopped me from wanting to keep going.  

I am writing this now because I have just come back from a three-week solo trip and a few of you have asked me about travelling alone. If I can distil anything useful about it, I will.